Dr Dwaipayan Deb of Silchar starts 'Doctors For You' telemedicine service for Covid-19 patients

The second wave of the Coronavirus has wreaked havoc all around the globe, with India reporting one of the highest Covid positive cases per day. The new mutant of the Covid-19 virus is leaving more body counts than ever before with its infection rate much higher than its previous variant. In Barak Valley alone, positive cases are piling up every day with Cachar district breaking all the per day Covid spike records continuously with passing day, setting a new target to break the very next day itself.

In such a state of emergency, it won’t be a surprise anymore if ICU beds here get filled up soon and Silchar too ends up becoming just like one of the worst Covid hit cities like Delhi or Mumbai. But even then, doctors and frontline health workers are keeping no stone unturned to save lives by risking their very own. Dr Dwaipayan Deb from Silchar is one such real-life hero who has decided to put his resources to the best of his abilities in this war against Covid. His recently founded helpline initiative ‘Doctors For You’ is a telemedicine service catering exclusively to the Covid-19 patients has done tremendous service to mankind during this Corona war.

Dr Dwaipayan Deb is an alumnus of the Silchar Medical College & Hospital and is currently working under the National Health Mission (NHM), Assam. His telemedicine service ‘Doctors For You’ was founded by him in late April of this year with the sole objective of providing help and assistance through phone calls to the Covid-19 patients who are recovering under home isolation, i.e, asymptotic patients mostly. Initially a one-man project, quickly circumstances compelled him to expand this initiative into a collective project of doctors as calls started coming in increasingly.

“During the first phase of the pandemic last year, there was a lot of confusion and misinformation in the minds of people as sufficient data regarding the virus and its characteristics were still unfolding to us. We noticed that many people due to the existing air of panic started rushing to the hospitals at the slightest hint of symptoms. This later resulted in many critical patients struggling to get ICU beds in the hospitals as most were already filled up. So I decided to start this telemedicine service for Covid patients who are asymptomatic and can get medical assist and recommendation while being in home isolation”, said Dr Dwaipayan Deb on what made him come up with this initiative.

Last year, just like most doctors all around, Dr Dwaipayan Deb too worked round the clock risking his life to serve Covid patients in Silchar. While on duty, he contracted the virus twice on separate occasions last year, but still that didn’t deter him from doing his duty, rather the setbacks motivated him more to serve the people around him better. Dr Deb said, “I wanted to start this initiative last year, but unfortunately, as I had contracted the virus twice last year, the plan didn’t come to fruition then. This year, when the second wave hit us, I posted on Facebook regarding this initiative, and from the very first day itself, calls started pouring in from different corners of this valley. Soon enough, I was getting almost 30 calls a day, which made it pretty much impossible to tend to all the calls in a single day, as I have my medical duty to tend to. So I started incorporating more doctors into this fold so that we could share the workload and work more efficiently to serve the people in need.”

Dr Dwaipayan Deb mentioned that around 90-95% of the patients who reached out to them through ‘Doctors For You’ are mildly symptomatic ones. He said that after consulting with the patients if they see that the concerned patient is symptomatic or in critical condition, they refer the patient to an active doctor on duty in a hospital. “As moderate – severely symptomatic or critical patients need extra care and minute observation, we tend to refer them to hospitals for doctors there to treat them physically. But for asymptomatic or moderately symptomatic patients, we try to aware them of the do’s and don’ts of a patient in home isolation so that they can stop panicking and start taking better care for themselves to recover quickly,” said Dr. Deb. Quickly within a month, the ‘Doctors For You’ initiative has successfully assisted 300+ Covid patients till now in the recovery process, which is a commendable feat, to say the least.

Dr. Dwaipayan Deb expressed that due to misinformation and lack of proper awareness and knowledge regarding this virus, many people have been hoarding medicines without any doctor’s prescription. This might do more harm than good to the Covid patients in the long run which should be addressed. Further adding, he said, “We now have a team of 10 doctors, with the added expertise of two senior doctors as well, Dr Jayanta Kurmi, M.D. (Psychiatry) for mental health helpline and Dr Kinnor Das, M.D. (Dermatology) for skincare, as many Covid survivors have inhibited issues related to the skin during the ailment. We keep getting calls from 10 am to 10 pm, though sometimes we even get calls outside that phase. According to their individual physical condition, we provide their recommendations and necessary medication that don’t demand any physician’s prescription like multivitamins and zinc meds. Also, we recommend what to consume and not if any patient is having allergic conditions as well.

He also mentioned that ‘Doctors For You’ has been getting calls even from cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Moreover, on several occasions, they also consulted patients from countries like Bangladesh and Nepal as well. Silchar indeed is blessed to possess such an industrious and talented physician.